Tourist may have contracted deadly strain while on holiday in Thailand

Last night, France's Health Minister, Xavier Bertrand, confirmed that the Pasteur Institute in Paris was analysing samples taken from three people who had been taken ill on Réunion after returning there from a holiday which included a visit to a Thai bird park.

"The first tests were taken on Réunion Island and were positive. The samples are now being analysed at the Pasteur Institute and we will have the result for the first patient on Thursday," said the minister.

The 43-year-old is understood to have been admitted to hospital in Saint-Denis, Réunion, last Saturday, with muscular pain and headaches. Suspicions of bird flu by local hospital officials prompted them to interview 18 other people who had been part of the man's travel party. Those interviews led to a further two people being admitted to hospital.

M. Bertrand said the 43-year-old man and the two others who had felt flu symptoms were in a "satisfactory condition" after receiving anti-viral treatment.

If the three cases are confirmed, they would be the first in humans in the European Union and might prompt governments to consider imposing travel restrictions. Even though Réunion is a tropical overseas territory, situated off the south-eastern coast of Africa, it is administratively part of France and not usually subject to any sanitary restrictions.

Last night, the French government stopped short of issuing travel restrictions but the national centre for disease control, the Institut de Veille Sanitaire (InVS), renewed its advisory to passengers returning from areas affected by H5N1. This states that people returning to France from an affected area should seek medical advice if they suffer from fever and flu symptons within 10 days of the end of their trip.

An InVS spokesman, Jean-Claude Désenclos, said: "The risks remain very limited for people travelling to affected areas. Since the end of 2003, 120 cases have been reported to us. Of these, only eight cases were analysed by national laboratories [such as Pasteur] and all proved negative."

Last night, the Landes prefecture in south-west France said that the corpses of eight migratory birds found dead on Tuesday at Capbreton were to be sent for tests.

Fear of bird flu has gripped France more than many other EU countries. Yesterday, a spokesman for the Fédération des Entreprises du Commerce et de la Distribution, which represents supermarkets, said sales of chicken were down by 25 per cent compared to last year.